Did you know that two versions of this film supposedly exist? Years ago in the pages of the late, lamented "Gorezone Magazine," Tim Lucas used to run his Video Watchdog column. He was contacted by Bobbie Breesee (star of Evil Spawn) and she told him that in no short order "Yes, the film stank, but the film makers had prepared an all new edition that fixed up a lot of the problems and made the film much better as a result." Anyone who had the orginal version could send it to the address she provided and they would get the "upgrade" totally free. Can you beleive it? These guys beat George Lucas to the punch with a special edition years before he gave the Star Wars films the same treatment.

Has anyone out there seen the two versions of Evil Spawn? I'd like to know what they supposedly did to improve it.

Yes, two versions of the film exist alright. Originaly made as EVIL SPAWN, the film was later changed to THE ALIEN WITHIN and featured new footage of Gordon Mitchell and a couple of other performers. The new footage was directed by none other than Fred Olen Ray. THE ALIEN WITHIN was released in the very early 90's as I can recall, but sadly no copy of this "Alternate Version" has been seen or re-released. What a shame.

Enjoyed the review of "Evil Spawn," as it was one of two Fred Olen Ray films on which I served as production assistant during my brief time in Hollywood. (No, the original version of "Spawn" wasn't directed by Ray, but it emerged from his production company.) It's my hand--inside a rubber insect claw--that bursts out from Brent's chest in the finale. I also donned the suit itself--actually a half suit only--for the shot of the monster entering the house. (Sadly, despite what I believed to be world-class monster emoting, my entire on-screen appearance was cut to a split-second.)

The reason that the conversation between Evelyn and Dr. Zeitman makes no sense is that it was a "generic" scene filmed with the intention of plugging into any Fred Olen Ray flick that might benefit from the cachet of an appearance by John Carradine. The actress playing Evelyn was Ray's wife at the time, and tended to pop up in his works. Thus, a scene which was shot in which Ray's wife talked to Carradine about things that sounded meaningful without any reference to actual events which might occur in a subsequent film.

More trivia: Lynn's house in the film was the actual home of the actress who played her, Bobbie Bresee. Her husband, Frank Bresee, is perhaps best known for devising the drinking board game "Pass Out."

Actually there are at least 3 versions of this movie. Yes, the first one was pretty lame, but in a protracted legal action, Fred Ray got the rights to the movie back from the Bresees. When he did, he saw their "improvements" and was appalled. Their major "addition" was a pre-credits scene of Bobbie Bresee driving around Beverly Hills in their Rolls (a car that shows up in the earlier footage supposedly belonging to another caracter entirely). Their visual "improvements" were ridiculous. Someone apprarently convinced them that it would make things much better visually to optically zoom in to close0ups, making an OK medium CU look like a blurry and badly frames tight CU. Idiotic. And Fred found that they had pedalled their "improved version" in so many markets-- unsuccessfully-- that he could not sell it anywhere, since the buyers had already seen (and rejected) the Bresee version.

He asked me to rework the thing ala Al Adamson or Corman. I first came up with a re-do that would've meant jettisoning ALL of Bresee's scenes as the "younger" actress, since she doesn't look a day younger in them than she does as the "old" actress. Fred thought that was too elaborate, so I came up with a secondary plot involving characters referenced in the dialogue of EVIL SPAWN but never seen. A couple of times, I'd take a phone call sequence from the old one and intercut it with new stuff to try to bring the 2 movies together. Also, Fred was thoughtful enough to hire Forry Ackerman, who is in one solitary shot in the 1st version. Wearing the same shirt, he then shows up in a scene from our new stuff.

We shot on Beta SP tape and posted at FIlmLook, which was a problem. Our stuff was actually a lot crisper and better lit than the first stuff, which had been shot on 16, edited and posted, then bumped up to 35mm, then transferred back down to video. Nobody's complained about that -- since there are so many other wonderful things to complain about.

Maybe it's because I'm damn old myself, but I want to put a word in for B Bressee. Her figure looks as if it might be her own, whereas the allegedly more attractive secretary sports the horrible silicone breasts which American men unaccountably find so sexy. Somebody please enlighten me - why are they any sexier than a glass eye or a wooden leg?